Language Of Confusion: Going In Circles, Part II

This week, we’re back to looking at words related to the Proto Indo European sker-, except this version of sker- means to turn or bend instead of to cut like the other one. It just goes to show that there have been homophones for as long as there has been language.
 
Now this word gave us circle, and you might be surprised to find out that it also gave us ring. Ring comes from the Old English hring, which means ring and also used to mean circle before it was replaced in that regard. I mean, kind of. You see a circle you can just as easily call it a ring. It’s from the Proto Germanic hringaz, which is from sker-, as weird as it might seem. Germanic did what’s called “nasalizing”, which basically means a consonant sound spoken with the soft palate, like M or N. I really don’t know how that works, because it sounds crazy to just start saying a word in a completely different way.
 
Also from the same place is rink. It showed up in the late fourteenth century, meaning ground sectioned off for combat or a race, and then in 1787 a section of ice for curling, and then smooth wood for skating in 1875. It’s thought to be Scottish in origin and taken from the Old French renc/reng, and that’s thought to be from hringaz as well.
 
It’s kind of funny that shrink is also related, yet surprisingly not as much to rink. Shrink comes from the Middle English shrinken and Old English scrincan, which also meant to shrink. It’s from the Proto Germanic skrink-, which actually makes more sense as being from sker-, although it doesn’t make much sense that to turn/bend changed into to make smaller. Still, I suppose I can kind of see it.
 
Then there’s ridge—ridge! It comes from the Middle English rigge and Old English hrycg, which meant ridge or a spine, and is actually what gave us rucksack. Yes, rucksack. The ruck literally meant back, and the sack is just sack, so it’s a backpack (or back sack!). Anyway, it’s from the Proto Germanic hruggin, which is thought to be from the Proto Indo European kreuk-, a form of sker-. However, this one is a lot more of a guess than the others, so it would make sense if this isn’t true. But it’s not like etymology is about making sense.
 
Sources
Online Etymology Dictionary
Omniglot
University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center
University of Texas at San Antonio’s page on Proto Indo European language
University of Texas at Arlington
Tony Jebson’s page on the Origins of Old English
Old English-English Dictionary
Encyclopaedia Britannica